Is education past its sell-by date?

School should be about more than playing the 'grades game', writes Sarita Rao

sarita rao

25.11.2018

Sadly, for other parents and children it's "all 'bout those grades, 'bout those grades"Photo: Shutterstock

School should be about more than playing the 'grades game', writes Sarita Rao

Fed up with endless graded assignments and tests, last month my daughter asked the question, "why do I have to go to school?", shortly followed by the more worrying :"do we just work all our lives and then die?"

She's making the difficult transition from primary to secondary education, saddled with huge amounts of stress and a school bag that feels like she's training to be a hod-carrier.

Talking about the world of work to an eleven year old is dangerous territory. Instead, I show her the recently viral Prince Ea video, which questions the whole ethos of school, what we learn, why we learn it and how we use it.

The caveat – that school is legally compulsory so she has to go, but tinged with a bit of sympathy that even I'm not convinced that she has to learn about mini-sagas, ordinance survey maps and the solubility of vinegar.

School hasn't changed much in 40 years

Watching the video, what struck me most was how much school has not changed since I was there 40 years ago.

Not just the bells that tell you like a Pavlov dog that it's time to change classrooms, nor the millions of books you have to carry, but that the subjects are exactly the same, taught in the same way, despite the fact technology has moved on considerably since Atari and Amstrad were big computing brands.

What do you do when you don't have an answer? Watch a TED talk that's what. So I watched Ken Robinson's "Do schools kill creativity?" In it he explains how we are not preparing tomorrow's creative leaders or entrepreneurs.

We are creating an army of obedient workers using the same educational system that existed at the time of the industrial revolution. Yet the world of work is changing beyond recognition.

Creative thinkers or drones?

Meritocracy is the cornerstone of free liberal markets and democracy. Leadership is the most touted requirement in job advertisements. But I've worked for good leaders, and I've also worked for alpha dominant bullies. There is a difference. Is the kid who shouts loudest in the class or brags about their grades actually a leader or creative thinker or just the product of pushy parents with an unrivalled ability to remember large chunks of information for tests?

Robinson, like many commentators highlights the Finnish education system where kids barely go to school, work on projects not subjects, have no homework, yet all grow up to be geniuses. Moving to Finland is not on my agenda, but I'd seriously consider homeschooling if I thought I could do it without murdering my own children.

What happened to art and music?

I tell my kids not to worry about their grades too much and encourage their enthusiasm for art and music. Who knows maybe one of them will be the next Meghan Trainor or Banksy. But sadly, for other parents and children it's "all 'bout those grades, 'bout those grades".

I'm sad to see my daughter only look at her academic achievements when she gets her first secondary school report. She tells me she loves art but it won't pay the bills, and playing the tin whistle is great for relaxation but it's not really a career choice. At eleven, she already knows what the world and her peers' value.

Education should be about expanding horizons, sparking creativity and different ways of looking at the same problem. That's what inspired inspired Dutch inventor Boyan Slat to create a solution to the plastic waste floating in the oceans at the age of 16. Yet my daughter is bogged down in turgid academic theory, and spends hours listening to it, then regurgitating it in weekly assignments or tests.

Overhauling education

Eighteen seems a long way off when you are eleven. Long enough to knuckle down and commit to an education system you don't actually believe in, and play the grades game. But also long enough to give up on yourself and life in general.

We're trawling all the schools in Luxembourg right now, trying to see if anything is different. Enthusiastic teachers openly answer questions about methods of teaching, but ultimately the end-game is the same, it's just a choice between European and International diplomas or IGSCEs. No school is radically overhauling the system.

Is it time for parents and kids to speak out and for schools to admit that today's out-dated education system is no longer fit for purpose? If so, where do we begin?